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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2016 20:54:43 GMT -5
I think you've nailed it. They're just telling the same stories over and over again, but trying to 'take them to the edge'. That event's been done before and been the source of a huge event... and then undone a year later. As I'm sure this will be. I think that's why the continuity thing is important.. using history and legacy can make it easy and organic to take a similiar situation that has happened in the past and give it a fresh take. My view is that the iconic characters should, more or less, stay forever unchanged with the "illusion of change" thing that's controversial among creators. Some like it, others don't, but when you're dealing with immortal characters who will never die of old age, it's just how you have to play it. That said, ideally, you'd have interesting new characters and concepts coming in that don't take the mantle from the icons, or screw up said icons histories, but instead have their own identity and add without subtracting. This is basically what Lee and Kirby were doing and how it was done when new characters were introduced in the 70's and 80's. Readers stopped accepting new ideas because most of the new ideas simply weren't as interesting. A lot of that, I'd wager, had to do with creators being hesitant to give Marvel and DC their best ideas. Can't blame them. I think THIS wins the internet for the day. Most of the Marvel characters have done it all. How many times can you battle Galactus or defeat Dr. Doom? Got that right Iccy. Even the greatest genre authors with the greatest all-time fictional characters, creations such as Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow. Tarzan and more came to realize that at some point you can't keep churning out month after month, for years, decades. half frickin' centuries, stories with the same character concepts with devolving into repeated hack clap-trap. And no amount of window-dressing change could avoid the seen-it, done-it feel. Make the character grow breasts, kill-revive-repeat, ho hum.. they'll just meet their arch enemy once again for the 537th time. The super hero concept is soooo played out. The only thing still keeping it alive is the older fans desperation to recapture the thrill these characters gave them when they were children. Unchanging eternal characters only works if the audience turns over so it is still new to the audience. What happened with big2 super-hero characters (and some iconic pulp era heroes) is that the audience didn't turn over, it lingered on long past the expected expiration date for their readership so the old standbys that were new in the eyes of the new audiences now felt stale, and the lingering audience wanted something new but not change at the same time (mutually exclusive desires again) so you get nonsense like "not change but the illusion of change" which only works once, then you realize any change isn't real and the status quo is maintained and that feel of staleness begins to permeate things, until you get reboots, rebirths, relaunches, legacies, shocking twits, events de rigeur to try to fulfill that nonsense credo of illusion of change. Story is based on characters facing conflict and the change the experience causes in the characters (i.e. growth). Without that crucial element of what makes a plot a story, you have and unending parade of vignettes that accomplish nothing real and leave everybody unsatisfied. This is the current landscape of big 2 super-hero comics. Again look at the comic stories that have become evergreeen sellers and resonated enough with audiences to emerge beyond the ghetto of hardcore comics fans and find larger audiences, and they are stories with beginnings, middles, and ends with conflict causing growth and change in the characters. There may be short runs by creative teams on certain books that manage to rise above, but they are certainly the exception and seem to happen almost by mistake these days rather than by design, and if I am being honest, that may have been the case more often than not throughout the history of big2 comics. Comics of that ilk worked perfectly fine for what they were until the bronze Age when fans didn't turn over and lingered on longer than expected and added expectations of one long continuous story with continuity but without any real change to the status quo ever occurring, which are pretty much goals at odds with each other and almost mutually exclusive. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 14, 2016 21:29:25 GMT -5
I do think that it takes a readership that either goes away for awhile once they get bored or accepts and understands that most of the fundamental stuff needs to stay unchanged to maintain the core appeal of a given character. This is the basic premise that everything from Peanuts to Prince Valiant worked under for decades. I think fans misinterpreted the "world outside your window" approach that Marvel took to mean that things not only had to change cosmetically as the years rolled on, but that the basics of the characters needed to change along with it. In that mentally lies the problem.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2016 21:43:50 GMT -5
I do think that it takes a readership that either goes away for awhile once they get bored or accepts and understands that most of the fundamental stuff needs to stay unchanged to maintain the core appeal of a given character. This is the basic premise that everything from Peanuts to Prince Valiant worked under for decades. I think fans misinterpreted the "world outside your window" approach that Marvel took to mean that things not only had to change cosmetically as the years rolled on, but that the basics of the characters needed to change along with it. In that mentally lies the problem. except that is the basic expectation of storytelling that the human mind is hardwired to expect... -M |
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Post by berkley on Jul 14, 2016 22:27:59 GMT -5
I think two completely different kinds of character change are being confused here: there's the development a given character might naturally undergo as a result of the experiences that occur to him/her within the plot; but then there are arbitrary changes that are simply imposed for the sake of change, with or without any plot-derived rationale to justify them, and that's something else altogether.
To give Doctor Strange, for example, a new, slang-ridden speech pattern and generally characterise him as a Tony Stark-style woman-chasing playboy isn't character development, it's just an arbitrary alteration driven by marketing considerations.
I'm not complaining, mind you; just pointing out the obvious.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2016 23:22:49 GMT -5
I think two completely different kinds of character change are being confused here: there's the development a given character might naturally undergo as a result of the experiences that occur to him/her within the plot; but then there are arbitrary changes that are simply imposed for the sake of change, with or without any plot-derived rationale to justify them, and that's something else altogether. To give Doctor Strange, for example, a new, slang-ridden speech pattern and generally characterize him as a Tony Stark-style woman-chasing playboy isn't character development, it's just an arbitrary alteration driven by marketing considerations. I'm not complaining, mind you; just pointing out the obvious. Just saying, the classic Strange characterization you like lasted form '62-the early 90s. The current has lasted almost as long as it has been around since the early 2000s when Strange appeared in Bendis Avengers, so 12-14 years. Strange was basically on hiatus in between rarely appearing anywhere or characterized any way. For those who started reading comics post-2000, the current characterization of Stephen is the correct one because it is the only one they have ever known. Not everyone goes back and reads the old stuff and those who experience the newer take first look often look at the older stuff and say man, I'm glad they improved because that older take was awful. I don't agree, but we often forget how long these "newer" takes have been the official take and how ingrained that take has become on current readers who would not take well to a return to form to our favored takes by "their" characters. And not to pick on you Berk, but have you read all the Strange stories between your favored version and the current version to know if it has been a legitimate growth or an arbitrary change? I know I haven't and I assume it's not, but there are huge gaps of Doc stories I haven't read when he didn't have his own book that have done everything from strip him of pieces of his soul to hint a this participation in some eons long war between the mystical powers like Agomotto, the Vishanti, and others that essentially took him out of the timestream of some such while the war was being fought and returned him after it was concluded a very changed man, but it was all done off panel or some such. I know a few posters in the Doc thread at our old place were hoping the new series by Aaron was going to reveal what actually happened to Doc in those events. Then there was the whole 6 issue Strange series by J. Michael Straczynski which was basically everything you know about Doc's origin is wrong and this is how it all actually happened that coincided with his run on Amazing Spider-Man and Doc's appearances in the Spider-Totem stories he was telling there. There's a whole big bag of stuff I put in the I don't care file about Doc and that I don't choose to track down or try to figure out because in the end it doesn't matter-I read the Doc stories I like and I stop reading or ignore the ones I don't like-not because they don't fit my archaic view of the best take on Doc, but because they aren't stories that bring me enjoyment when I read them. However some of them may justify in story the changes to the way Doc is portrayed these days. I wouldn't know and as I said, I don't care all that much because ultimately I am gong to judge and current Doc book on its own merits and whether it entertains me or not. What I am saying is that, our takes are what we are used to, and what we think are the right takes, but these characters have now been around so long that there are going to be multiple takes that appeal to different audiences of the character. People like to talk about comic books and super-heroes being modern mythology, and if that is true, then the myths will survive multiple takes-which version of Hercules is the correct one in all the many stories told under the umbrella of Greek myths? Even if you limit it to stories produced in the classical world there are wildly varying takes of Hercules out there. Or Thor. Or Zeus. Or Cuculhian, etc. Again, we are no longer the target demographic and the takes we are used to may not be the takes that the current target demographic knows. To me any take that is not Ditko/Lee is a pastiche even though I adore some of them, but it's no longer Ditko/Lee's character, it wasn't the minute Roy Thomas or Bill Everett or any of the others worked on it, and there some takes on Doc in those later Strange Tales that were at odds with Ditko's take and didn't flow well from the stories that had been told but seemed to be just this is how that writer wants to portray Doc (or Clea, or the Ancient One, or what have you). The character belongs to Marvel and whatever take they want to put out, whatever vision the creator they put on the book wants to execute, is the one that is going to feel right for those who discover the character for the first time in that period and anything prior will feel off to them. Once Ditko left the strip, there's never been 1 Doctor Strange, but several, all echoes of the character created by Ditko and Lee, just as there's never been one Hercules. Doesn't mean all the versions are good, doesn't mean I like them all or that I don't have similar preferences to you, but for better or worse, varied interpretations are inevitable anytime you have more than one creative set of hands molding a character or mythos. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 15, 2016 2:17:20 GMT -5
I don't really buy that there isn't a way to get a characterization wrong. It's one thing to reveal things about a characters history, or develop new powers, but it's a completely different thing for a character's personality to completely change with no explanation simply at the whims of the creators and editors. Sure, they have the power and authority to do such things, but that's beside the point. They're still open to criticism from long-time readers. Now, to be fair, Marvel did reorder the reality of the Marvel Universe, so this is technically not the original Doctor Strange...yet Marvel says it is, right?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2016 9:58:51 GMT -5
I don't really buy that there isn't a way to get a characterization wrong. It's one thing to reveal things about a characters history, or develop new powers, but it's a completely different thing for a character's personality to completely change with no explanation simply at the whims of the creators and editors. Sure, they have the power and authority to do such things, but that's beside the point. They're still open to criticism from long-time readers. Now, to be fair, Marvel did reorder the reality of the Marvel Universe, so this is technically not the original Doctor Strange...yet Marvel says it is, right? At one point in the 70s Marvel destroyed the entire Marvel universe in the pages of Doctor Strange, nobody except Doc and Eternity survived and Doc persuaded Eternity to create and grow a new MU and replace everyone with "exact doppelgangers" so none of the characters are the originals if you want to follow continuity, but then a new writer came in and said nope really it was all an illusion, ha ha jokes on you Doc, except none of it really matters-they are going to tell stories that appeal to the current audience, whether they are long term readers or new readers and what they tell in one story only lasts as long as the next creative team allows it to. The thing is there is no "real" Dr.Strange, that's the point I was making. If comics are myths, they become something more than one story, one iteration of a character. Myths are about archetypes and themes and the art of storytelling, not about the specific details or characterizations that can very form telling to telling, place to place, audience to audience. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 15, 2016 10:20:31 GMT -5
I don't really buy that there isn't a way to get a characterization wrong. It's one thing to reveal things about a characters history, or develop new powers, but it's a completely different thing for a character's personality to completely change with no explanation simply at the whims of the creators and editors. Sure, they have the power and authority to do such things, but that's beside the point. They're still open to criticism from long-time readers. Now, to be fair, Marvel did reorder the reality of the Marvel Universe, so this is technically not the original Doctor Strange...yet Marvel says it is, right? At one point in the 70s Marvel destroyed the entire Marvel universe in the pages of Doctor Strange, nobody except Doc and Eternity survived and Doc persuaded Eternity to create and grow a new MU and replace everyone with "exact doppelgangers" so none of the characters are the originals if you want to follow continuity, but then a new writer came in and said nope really it was all an illusion, ha ha jokes on you Doc, except none of it really matters-they are going to tell stories that appeal to the current audience, whether they are long term readers or new readers and what they tell in one story only lasts as long as the next creative team allows it to. The thing is there is no "real" Dr.Strange, that's the point I was making. If comics are myths, they become something more than one story, one iteration of a character. Myths are about archetypes and themes and the art of storytelling, not about the specific details or characterizations that can very form telling to telling, place to place, audience to audience. -M The thing is, I don't share the opinion that superheroes are myths. I used to, to an extent, until Mark Waid pointed out that they aren't because myths have definite endings. As far as there not being a real Dr. Strange, once again, I've read the bulk of his solo title from his first appearance till when his title was canceled in the mid-80's. I've read all the Lee/Ditko material, a good portion of the Englehart run and all of Roger Stern's run, specifically. At least during that era, Strange stayed more or less the same personality wise, save that later writers obviously spent a bit more time expanding his characterization from the basic premise as compared to the Lee/Ditko issues which had to be mostly action given the page limit. There is no logical progression from the Strange I read and the current one. Now look at a character like Tony Stark. Sure, he wasn't Robert Downy Jr. in those early Lee/Heck stories, but he was a suave ladies man who yucked it up a bit in social situations. Downy's take, while exaggerated compared to the comics, didn't contradicted the established characterization in my view. This is the distinction I see. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2016 10:40:32 GMT -5
At one point in the 70s Marvel destroyed the entire Marvel universe in the pages of Doctor Strange, nobody except Doc and Eternity survived and Doc persuaded Eternity to create and grow a new MU and replace everyone with "exact doppelgangers" so none of the characters are the originals if you want to follow continuity, but then a new writer came in and said nope really it was all an illusion, ha ha jokes on you Doc, except none of it really matters-they are going to tell stories that appeal to the current audience, whether they are long term readers or new readers and what they tell in one story only lasts as long as the next creative team allows it to. The thing is there is no "real" Dr.Strange, that's the point I was making. If comics are myths, they become something more than one story, one iteration of a character. Myths are about archetypes and themes and the art of storytelling, not about the specific details or characterizations that can very form telling to telling, place to place, audience to audience. -M The thing is, I don't share the opinion that superheroes are myths. I used to, to an extent, until Mark Waid pointed out that they aren't because myths have definite endings. As far as there not being a real Dr. Strange, once again, I've read the bulk of his solo title from his first appearance till when his title was canceled in the mid-80's. I've read all the Lee/Ditko material, a good portion of the Englehart run and all of Roger Stern's run, specifically. At least during that era, Strange stayed more or less the same personality wise, save that later writers obviously spent a bit more time expanding his characterization from the basic premise as compared to the Lee/Ditko issues which had to be mostly action given the page limit. There is no logical progression from the Strange I read and the current one. Now look at a character like Tony Stark. Sure, he wasn't Robert Downy Jr. in those early Lee/Heck stories, but he was a suave ladies man who yucked it up a bit in social situations. Downy's take, while exaggerated compared to the comics, didn't contradicted the established characterization in my view. This is the distinction I see. But that Lee/Kirby/Heck Tony was an agent of Kang all along and replaced by a Teen Tony form another dimension who was taken to a world created by Franklin Richards where he returned the same Tony we knew all along-no confusing contradictions of characterization there at all-ah isn't continuity great. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 15, 2016 10:50:34 GMT -5
I'm a firm believer that fans are entitled to their own personal continuities.  I'd wager that Marvel Studios is going to give us more of a classic take on Dr. Strange since, ya know, making him Tony Stark plus magic would be redundant. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 15, 2016 11:04:48 GMT -5
The thing is, I don't share the opinion that superheroes are myths. I used to, to an extent, until Mark Waid pointed out that they aren't because myths have definite endings. As far as there not being a real Dr. Strange, once again, I've read the bulk of his solo title from his first appearance till when his title was canceled in the mid-80's. I've read all the Lee/Ditko material, a good portion of the Englehart run and all of Roger Stern's run, specifically. At least during that era, Strange stayed more or less the same personality wise, save that later writers obviously spent a bit more time expanding his characterization from the basic premise as compared to the Lee/Ditko issues which had to be mostly action given the page limit. There is no logical progression from the Strange I read and the current one. Now look at a character like Tony Stark. Sure, he wasn't Robert Downy Jr. in those early Lee/Heck stories, but he was a suave ladies man who yucked it up a bit in social situations. Downy's take, while exaggerated compared to the comics, didn't contradicted the established characterization in my view. This is the distinction I see. But that Lee/Kirby/Heck Tony was an agent of Kang all along and replaced by a Teen Tony form another dimension who was taken to a world created by Franklin Richards where he returned the same Tony we knew all along-no confusing contradictions of characterization there at all-ah isn't continuity great. -M That's a good example of stuff that makes readers go " Whaaaaa...? That's not the real Tony Stark!"; and because they're right, things eventually go back to normal. What matters is the core essence of a character. That's the "real" deal. Is Stark an electrical engineer, a physicist, a polymath? That doesn't matter; he's a technologically-savvy industrialist. Is he from the '50s, the '60s, the '90s? Was he wounded in Vietnam, in the Middle east, in Madeupistan? It doesn't matter: he was a weapons designer, was wounded in a foreign country where his weapons hurt people, saw the errors of his way and built himself a suit of armour with which he decided to do good. He's a playboy. He's an alcoholic. He's a founding member of the Avengers. That's the essence of Tony Stark, that's the "real" Iron Man. All the crap about him being a stooge for Kang the whole time is as nonsensical as Cap being a Hydra agent; we know that it's a temporary tear in the fabric of his life's tapestry, and one that is soon mended. Like Coca-Cola, which might be Diet, Cherry, New recipe or whatever, there is such a thing as the real thing! |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 15, 2016 20:44:37 GMT -5
The thing is, I don't share the opinion that superheroes are myths. I used to, to an extent, until Mark Waid pointed out that they aren't because myths have definite endings. As far as there not being a real Dr. Strange, once again, I've read the bulk of his solo title from his first appearance till when his title was canceled in the mid-80's. I've read all the Lee/Ditko material, a good portion of the Englehart run and all of Roger Stern's run, specifically. At least during that era, Strange stayed more or less the same personality wise, save that later writers obviously spent a bit more time expanding his characterization from the basic premise as compared to the Lee/Ditko issues which had to be mostly action given the page limit. There is no logical progression from the Strange I read and the current one. Now look at a character like Tony Stark. Sure, he wasn't Robert Downy Jr. in those early Lee/Heck stories, but he was a suave ladies man who yucked it up a bit in social situations. Downy's take, while exaggerated compared to the comics, didn't contradicted the established characterization in my view. This is the distinction I see. But that Lee/Kirby/Heck Tony was an agent of Kang all along and replaced by a Teen Tony form another dimension who was taken to a world created by Franklin Richards where he returned the same Tony we knew all along-no confusing contradictions of characterization there at all-ah isn't continuity great. -M He wasn't REALLY an agent of Kang.. that was a Space Phantom. (Thanks, Kurt Busiek). Teen Tony was just.... er, um, well, anyway, it doesn't matter, because then Heroes Reborn happened, and Franklin Richards didn't know about either Space Phantoms or Teen Tony. The real question is.. why did Tony Stark and Peter Parker swap character templates, and, if Bendis really wants to write Spidey and Slott really wants to write Iron Man, why the heck don't they just swap? |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 16, 2016 4:32:26 GMT -5
But that Lee/Kirby/Heck Tony was an agent of Kang all along and replaced by a Teen Tony form another dimension who was taken to a world created by Franklin Richards where he returned the same Tony we knew all along-no confusing contradictions of characterization there at all-ah isn't continuity great. -M He wasn't REALLY an agent of Kang.. that was a Space Phantom. (Thanks, Kurt Busiek). Teen Tony was just.... er, um, well, anyway, it doesn't matter, because then Heroes Reborn happened, and Franklin Richards didn't know about either Space Phantoms or Teen Tony. The real question is.. why did Tony Stark and Peter Parker swap character templates, and, if Bendis really wants to write Spidey and Slott really wants to write Iron Man, why the heck don't they just swap? Because trolling the fans and poking the hornets nests leads to short term sales and keeps them employed? |
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Post by The Captain on Jul 21, 2016 14:49:31 GMT -5
More mirth and merriment from Marvel, who decided they should kill {Spoiler}Bruce Banner in the most-recent issue of this company-wide extravaganza, and not only that, it was {Spoiler}Hawkeye who pulled the trigger. So freaking glad I'm sitting this one out. It sounds about as much fun as a root canal being performed by a dentist with a spastic twitching disorder. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 21, 2016 17:46:19 GMT -5
From what I read {Spoiler: Click to show}
Hawkeyes was given the weapon by Bruce himself. A copy from when Clark gave bruce Kryptonite back in the day. |
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